At the 2019 Family-Friendly Certification and Awards Ceremony held by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family at the Korea Chamber of Commerce in Seoul on December 13, Handok won the Prime Minister’s Award for Family-Friendly Corporate Culture.

Handok provides a wide range of family-friendly measures for its employees, in addition to cultivating a family-friendly culture throughout its organization to encourage employees to take advantage of those measures and maintain work-family balance. First certified as a “family-friendly corporation” in 2011, this recertification grants this honor until 2022, representing 11 years straight for the company.

Handok has been at the forefront in adopting various family-friendly measures for employees. A bi-weekly off-duty system was introduced in early 1997. A five-day workweek was introduced in 1998, long before it became mandatory in Korea in 2005. The flexible working hours and work-from-home measures enable employees to adjust their time at work and situations according to their family’s needs.

Handok also provides support for employee pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare. These measures include infertility treatment leave, prenatal examination leave, nursing rooms and reserved seating in the cafeteria for pregnant employees, electric wave-blocking blankets for expecting mothers, special allowances for childbirth, and partial subsidies of the cost of postpartum care facilities and gynecological tests. The company organizes annual family tours every May, inviting employee families to its main factory. Its corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns, such as charity bazaars and volunteer work, often involve employees and their families alike.

Most importantly, Handok stands out for its commitment to fostering an overall family-friendly culture in its organization. Women employees have been promoted while on maternity leave. Both women and men regularly take parental leave to tend to their children.